Published in The Walrus, but this article is about the US.

Montreal already does this: https://montreal.ca/en/programs/welcome-box-youngest-montrealers

I understand that baby boxes are no longer allowed in the U.S. but I see a reference to a different product causing issues.

In my mind, they were just looking for an excuse not to support a new family, the U.S. is backwards that way

Just a moment...

(www.jognn.org)

How much support new parents get seems to vary by city (and maybe province?).

I’ve also had two children born in Canada in the past few years, but in different cities (and provinces). Neither gave us a baby box, but the first provided a free and unprompted hearing test right in the recovery room, while the other required us to make a seperate appointment in the weeks following the birth for that same service.

We had to make an appointment a month after birth at a private clinic to deal with a tongue tie affecting feeding which is literally a little snip with some surgical scissors. We had two teams of doctors for labor and delivery for twins. We had specialists and nurses coming out the ass. In Canada we paid $150 to a private nurse four weeks later because no one at the hospital could do that.

Our first also needed a frenotomy, and we had to go to a specialist clinic outside the hospital.

My best understanding of that situation was that they first wanted to make sure it was actually a problem over a week or two of observation. Then, the procedure was technically classified as dental surgery, so a doctor at a hospital couldn’t perform it for professional/ethical/insurance reasons.

My kids are slightly older. We didn’t get a baby box, or a mattress.

I think we kept the stuff our kids were swaddled in when they left, and got an extra blanket or two. There may have been a day’s worth of diapers. I believe we got pamphlets on swaddling, feeding, and important dates (check ups, immunizations, etc).

I wasn’t expecting anything, so the blankets and diapers were nice, but it didn’t feel comprehensive.

The nurse who was supposed to visit us at home after a few weeks didn’t make an appointment or show up. That still makes me grumpy.

This was in Ottawa.

My daughter is 3. We accidentally stole a receiving blanket from the hospital. That was all we got. There are some free resources out there, like parenting books, but you are expected to seek them out yourself. I didn’t even realize you are supposed to get a support visit from a nurse until another parent mentioned it to me. It was up to me to know it was available and to schedule it.

The whole baby sleeping in a box thing seems a little weird to me, but giving all new parents a starter pack of supplies sounds great. We could just distribute the supplies in a different shaped box if that was a concern we need to prevent.
But let’s be real… US hospitals would try selling these care packages for a profit, when they should be free.

In our case there was no observation. We didn’t have a pediatrician. Yay Canadian healthcare. We went to a medical clinic with a nurse practitioner who did that and circumcisions. That would make me tend to believe it was considered a medical procedure in that province and not dental.

Regardless it’s very inefficient and a good reason our healthcare systems are falling apart. There is a dental clinic in most hospitals. In large centers it’s staffed like an ER. There certainly was in the hospital we were in. Having worked in EMS I had been in that clinic before.

We fed our baby through a tube for a month for no good reason at the very start of his life when he could have been feeding from his mother or a bottle. Further increasing his chances of needing more healthcare in the future. I don’t know. it’s frustrating that we have all the science and studies to tell us what is good and bad for us but the very providers of our healthcare don’t follow that information in many circumstances.